: If you've tried it I'd like to hear your thoughts on what was done to achieve
: the grenade climbing effect.

Unfortunately, I don't have the latest M1A1 maps, just the latest Aleph One application. Oops. Oh well. Even so, I'm horrible at grenade hopping, so it'd be pointless for me to try. In fact, part of what made Fire! (x5) such an annoying level for me was that I thought no matter which way you went, you had to grenade hop. If you skipped activating the H-Platform, you had to grenade-hop out of the lava to get to the other side. If you went to activate the H-Platform, you had to grenade-hop to get back to it, or so I thought.

Unfortunately, I hadn't gotten the hang of it yet, and so, inevitably, I kept grenading myself to death each time. Eventually I remembered seeing the dark corridor leading out above the lava, and I thought 'maybe if I could get to there, I could jump down to the ledge.' Sure enough, I found the hidden entrance to the corridor, and I was able to proceed to Colony Ship....

Colony Ship... Now that level had me in utter dejection at first. Not because of what the switches were like, but because of what I thought the switches were like. At first, I didn't realize M1A1 had gotten rid of that sin. But that's a story for another time. ;)

By the way, once I get to the more interesting parts of M1A1 (which, in fact, start with Defend THIS!, the very next edition), I'll stop being so detailed about the level design and focus more on my first impressions and on the story elements, along with the more interesting features of the levels.